Climate Detectives Projects 2022-2023


Project topic: Air pollution

Project title: Effect of tourist activity on air quality

Team: CienciasdoSon3

Porto do Son   Porto do Son   Spain   2 Student’s age: 16-17 years old

Research question

Can the tourist activity focused on the summer affect the quality of air?

Summary of the project
Timeseries of mean NO2 concentrations for Porto do Son, observed from 1 January to 31 August 2020, and for the same period an average for the same period, an average of the measurements in 2019, 2021 and 2022. The black box identifies the period of confinement in Spain (March 15 to June 21, 2020)

Porto do Son is a small town on the Barbanza Peninsula in Galicia, with about 9,200 inhabitants. However, the summer months there is a large influx of tourists: in 2016, a local government agency estimated that in the summer season the population of Porto do Son reaches 17,000. In this study we want to determine if this great summer tourist activity can affect air quality. For this we have analyzed measurements of NO2 in the air obtained by the Copernicus satellites.
We compare NO2 concentration data from the year 2020 (year of confinement due to COVID) with an average value of NO2 in “normal” years (2019, 2021 and 2022). Taking these data into account, and the hotel data from the province of A Coruña before, during and after 2020, we consider that the relationship between the mobility of people in Porto do Son and the concentration of NO2 is clear.

Main results and Conclusions
Hotel stays in the province of La Coruña in the summers of 2019, 2020 and 2021. Data from the National Institute of Statistics.

– NO2 concentrations in the months of March, April and May 2020 were not lower than the average values ​​of 2019, 2021 and 2022 (figure 1) A possible explanation for this fact could be that since it is a small town, its daily mobility in vehicles has not changed excessively in that time interval.
– In the months of June, July and August 2020, a lower concentration of NO2 in the air is observed (compared to the average value of 2019, 2021 and 2022) (figure 1). This may relate to the lower number of tourists in the summer of 2020. Figure 2 shows the data from the National Institute of Statistics corresponding to the province of La Coruña. This graph clearly shows a lower number of hotel stays in the province of La Coruña in the summer of 2020 (June, July and August), compared to similar data from the previous and subsequent years.
– We consider that this proves the effect of mobility (increase in tourists) on the concentration of NO2 in the air.

What’s Next? Actions to make a difference and help lessen the problem

– We believe that the quality of the air and the natural environment in general should be one of the tourist attractions of this area. For this reason, and for the health of the habitual inhabitants of the area, these air quality parameters must be studied and controlled.
– We believe that the local government should promote environmentally friendly tourism. Some mechanisms that we believe could be implemented are:
Facilitate mobility to the beach areas by creating safe urban routes for transit on foot or by bicycle.
Facilitate the use of rental bicycles or even electric bicycles.

Project poster:

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